When I queued with my mask on, to pick up our turkey (that’s now our Easter turkey), at 09:30 it had rained overnight but was just a bit drizzly but by the time I get home it was tipping down. The sky darkened and by mid afternoon there were floods all around us very locally – we live on a hill. All the places that normally are flooded were soon flooded and some places I have never seen flooded before were too. Friends were preparing to move furniture upstairs and we said they could use our spare bedroom if really needed (not COVID compliant but I haven’t read the bit about what you can and can’t do if your house is flooded).
By mid afternoon we learned that we are getting an upgrade – from Boxing Day we move from Tier 2 to Tier 3. At the same time Cambs (a couple of miles away) will move to Tier 4 as will all birding spots to the east of us in Norfolk and Suffolk. I wouldn’t like to price up the odds on the date when we will be in Tier 4. I hope my wine order, due today, makes its way through the floods and I notice that our turkey came from a fairly local farm in Tier 4 Bedfordshire.
But it seems that a Brexit deal might be announced later today as a badly wrapped Christmas present. The Brexit deal, if it comes, will be said to be a triumph and it will take a little while before we really understand what it actually means. It will be interesting to see whether Theresa May praises it as a deal miles better than the one on the table two years ago.
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!
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Assuming a Brexit deal is announced it will be important to look at the wildlife and environment section of it, assuming there is one. Hopefully it will show the EU is keeping the clamps on the U.K. and this rotten Government, with regard the maintenance of the intent and essentials of The Birds Directive and The Habitats Directives.
However as of the 1st Jan we will no doubt loose our right to appeal to the European Court over disgraceful wildlife and environmental decisions by this Government and have to appeal instead to the Governments “Office of Environmental Protection” which will no doubt be pretty toothless and grossly under funded.
Let’s hope that we see that the Government has had to agree to a good amount of EU environmental and wildlife protection.
There’s a legislative gap between 1st Jan 2021 & when the OEP is legally established (I think June/ July 2021 is the earliest).
Not that I am suggesting advantage will be taken of this legislative gap.